


Statement Begins

by SparkleDragons



Series: The Magnus Archives Daemon Au [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Panic Attack, canon-typical horror descriptions, canon-typical on Jon's treatment of martin season 1, daemon AU, only not tagged jon/martin because it's all season 1, ptsd? kind of?, season 1 Jon (honestly that's a warning in of itself), trauma related panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23191714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparkleDragons/pseuds/SparkleDragons
Summary: Part one of a series of shorts set in a canon-compliant daemon au. Set just before season 1 starts.
Series: The Magnus Archives Daemon Au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1667359
Comments: 10
Kudos: 128





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this daemon au in my head for a while now and decided the best way to get it out would be a bunch of shorts within the au. Since it follows canon closely and wouldn't benefit from a full-length long-fic au. Hope ya'll enjoy! <3
> 
> And Huge thanks to ShinyKipp for beta-ing part of this for me! She was a huge huge help!

Martin is a large man. Not only does he have a good 30 centimeters of height on Jon, Martin simply takes up space, and the oversized sweaters he always wears certainly don’t help. And yet, he has a way of scrunching himself down as much as he can manage in an effort to appear as un-intimidating as humanly possible. It’s not hard, mind. Martin gives off the energy of a man who would apologize if you tried to rob him, for… fumbling with his wallet while taking it out or something. It pisses Jon off; what he wouldn’t give to be able to actually loom over others instead of having to rely on glares alone.

It does not help that Martin seems _utterly incapable_ of even the simplest tasks beyond making tea. It drives Jon insane. He doesn’t understand the basic research process and Jon had to send his first few reports back in a huff because Martin hadn’t marked down _any_ sources. Martin never gets to the point, always insisting on asking about Jon’s day or making other pointless, idle conversation before actually getting to any important information. Jon swears if the archives were on fire, Martin would ask if he’d had a good evening before telling him they had to leave lest they die of smoke inhalation.

Theophania thinks Jon should lay off of Martin, and she makes sure he knows it. When Jon snaps at Martin more than she deems appropriate, she tugs at his hair with her beak and glares until he rolls his eyes and shoos Martin away. 

“We don’t even know what his daemon is, Thee,” Jon complains, picking up the papers Martin scattered across the floor when he tripped over one of Jon’s other stacks of files earlier in the day. He’d offered to pick it up in that bumbling, awkward way of his, but Jon had sent him off to do something actually useful. Martin would probably just have ruined the organisation if he did it, anyway. The man couldn't even watch where he was walking right… why Elias hired him, and then felt it appropriate to dump him on Jon, Jon can’t even fathom.

“Oh please, Jon,” Thee says, watching him from her perch on the desk. “She’s probably just shy. I wouldn’t be surprised, with how Martin makes his way about. Why does it matter.”

“It.. It doesn’t...” Jon says, rising from his crouch and skirting his way around a few carefully placed stacks on the floor and over to the desk. He taps the recovered papers on the desk a few times in an attempt to straighten them out before putting them back in the folder they spilled from. He sets them on top of one of the larger piles near his chair. 

“I’m just curious, Thee,” Jon continues. “You have to admit it’s strange.” A person’s daemon says a lot about who they are and most people like to show that off.

“You could just _ask_ him _,_ you know,” Thee says, lifting a wing to preen her feathers into place. “Or ask Elias to see Martin’s records. You _are_ Martin’s boss.”

“It’s not worth the trouble. He’s still useless at the end of the day.” He mostly mutters the last bit to himself, but of course, Thee has no trouble hearing him.

“Uhg,” Thee huffs. “You’re too hard on him.”

“I am not, Thee! An archival position is a lot of work, and he’s clearly incompetant,” Jon says, pulling open a filing drawer in his desk and sorting through the folders until he finds the one labled _Corrupted Recordings_.

Thee watches the file he pulls out carefully, feathers fluffing up ever so slightly with nerves. She takes a moment to gather herself before she says, “He’s a nice guy, Jon. I think he’s sweet. You could thank him for trying, at least.”

“Can we please just get back to work? If we can’t get these statements to record, we’re going to have to find an entirely new organizational system and, frankly, that is not an additional job I need to worry about.”

“Do we have to?” Thee whines, shuffling from foot to foot where she stands. “I hate those statements. They give me… chills.”

“Oh please, Thee. None of this is _real_. It’s all just a bunch of unreliable narrators and people looking for attention. Don’t tell me you really believe this absurdity.”

Thee levels about as scathing a look at him as a magpie can manage and then it’s Jon’s turn to shift uncomfortably. “Sure, Jon,” Thee says, unbelieving. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that. It won’t change the fact that we both-”

A knock on the door cuts her off.

“Uuhhh,” mutters whoever’s taken it upon themselves to disturb Jon and Thee. “Jon?”

Martin.

“Uhg,” Jon groans, dramatically tossing his head back. “What is it Martin?”

The door creaks open, scattering a few of the paper stacks across the floor, which Jon blatantly glares at. No respect for organization. Martin’s standing there with a mug of tea, steam curling off the top and Jon rolls his eyes. Tea does not solve all the world’s problems.

“Hi, uh. Sorry--Sorry to bother you… again. I uh. I made you some tea? As an apology? For the folders… earlier...” Martin holds out the mug hopefully, a nervous, crooked smile on his face and a light blush highlighting the many freckles scattered across his cheeks.

Jon swears his eyes are going to roll out of his head one of these days. He’s about to tell Martin to keep the tea and leave him alone when a sharp squawk from Thee alerts him to her glare. Fine. Fine. Martin is just trying to apologize; Jon will at least be _civil_ . He adjusts his glasses and says, “Thank you, Martin. Leave it on the desk. Have you looked into alternate recording methods like I _asked_? Or have you just been making tea all day.”

Thee grabs the end of his sleeve with her beak and tugs.

“Oh I uh. I did… actually. I was thinking you could try… tape? Possibly? Like… like analoge, you know?”

“Tape? You mean a physical tape recorder? Are you serious?”

“Well I just figured that... I don’t know. I have one at home I could bring. It’s old but-”

“We can’t get proper recordings on high-powered, modern computers and you want us to use _tape_.”

Theophania climbs Jon’s arm up to his shoulder and prods his face with a foot.

“ _Alright_ , Thee,” Jon waves his hand at her and she flaps her wings a few times to keep her footing, effectively smacking him in the face. Jon lets out a long suffering sigh and _ignores_ the light huff of laughter from Martin. “Fine. Bring in the… tape recorder. Nothing else has worked I suppose.”

“Right. Right…” Martin stumbles over his words. “Good. Yes. Good. I’ll bring that tomorrow, then?”

“Fine…”

Martin places the mug on the desk with the utmost care. There isn’t much space on the desk not covered in papers and if he’d spilled any of the tea Jon would probably have had to strangle him, so at least he’s being careful. Jon can respect that. He can’t respect the _utter waste of time_ this has been, but maybe Thee’s right. Maybe he _is_ to hard on the man… maybe.

As Martin turns to leave Jon glances over to Thee before biting the bullet and saying, “Martin before you go?”

“Oh. Uh… yes… Jon?” Martin pauses, hand reaching for the doorknob. He looks nervous. Jon can’t blame him for that, though. Usually Jon’s all too eager to shuffle Martin out of the room.

“I realize this is a personal question, but, well… I’ll be honest I just got curious. Why does one ever see your daemon? You uh- don’t have to answer I know it’s personal. Just abject curiosity.”

“Oh. Well… she, uhm. Phoibe gets shy sometimes… she usually just stays in my shirt…”

“I told you,” Thee whispers in Jon’s ear and he groans. So maybe he was being overly paranoid, fine. He can accept that. Now he knows. He’s still desperate to find out what Phoibe looks like, but at least now he knows _why_.

Martin shifts his weight a few times before saying, “I-uh. I could ask her if she wants to come out? We know you well enough now she might be fine with it.” Martin pulls the neckline of his sweater out just enough to say down his shirt, “Would that be ok, Phoibe?”

There’s a brief pause of exchanged whispers Jon can’t quite catch, which makes him scowl. He knows most people keep conversation with their daemons private, but he still wants to hear what they’re saying, especially since it’s likely about him. Then Martin nods and holds out his empty hand, which for a moment gives Jon pause. What’s Martin playing at? He’s about to snap at Martin to stop fooling around when a shape starts to move down his arm, notable only by the shift of fabric. A bug of some sort probably, then. Maybe a moth? Nervous people often get things like moths or butterflies; Jon wouldn't be surprised. It seems larger than that, though… not moving right under the fabric to match something with such delicate wings.

And after all, that would be too easy, too comfortable, wouldn’t it. No. What comes out leg, by awful, hairy leg, from under Martin’s sleeve is nothing remotely near a delicate butterfly. A spider. Phoibe’s a _spider_. She’s as big as Martin’s palm and Jon barely restrains himself from shouting. He can feel the way Thee stiffens up on his shoulder, claws just barely not digging in as her feet tighten to grip her perch, ready to bolt. He watches with stark fear the way Phoibe’s many, many legs tap over Martin’s hand, mandibles twitching in a way Jon can only think of as ‘hungrily’.

“She’s ah--- this is Phoibe,” Martin says, oblivious to Jon and Thee’s combined terror at even being in the same room with her. Jon tries to rationalize it. She’s not a real spider, just a daemon shaped like one. It’s _fine_. He’s fine. Images of long, dark, segmented legs reaching hungrily from a doorway flash in the back of Jon’s mind like a waking nightmare.

“She’s really sweet,” Martin continues to coo, running a few fingers down Phoibe’s black and orange back, covered in fine, wiry hair ready to brush against-- “Cute too. I was so excited when she settled as something as cool as-” He finally looks up and catches Jon’s expression and the way Thee’s fluffed up to three times her size, huddled close against Jon’s head. “O-oh. I uh. I’m sorry. I’ll just… go...”

Jon watches the way Martin completely deflates as he lifts Phoibe up to his shoulder. Jon wants to feel bad for his reaction, he really does, but his eyes stay locked on her until she crawls out-of-sight, back under Martin’s shirt. Jon’s being irrational, Phoibe can’t even touch him, but he can’t help but shake at the phantom feeling of invisible thread wrapping around his limbs, guiding him, forcing him to-

The door clicks behind Martin as he leaves and snaps Jon back to the present. He hadn’t realized how heavily he was breathing, how stiff he’d gone and he just collapses into his chair, waiting for his heart rate to go back down. He keeps jerking his head towards the door, half expecting the knob to turn and let in eight, long, black, chitinous legs reaching in to take him, to finally get their due and-

“Jon? Jon,” Thee nudges against his face, grounding him. “Jon it’s ok. We’re safe. We’re fine.”

“A spider,” Jon says, more a breath than anything else, running a hand through his hair. “She’s a _spider_ , Thee.”

“No… no,” Thee says, tucking herself under Jon’s chin where he can run his fingers through her soft blue and white feathers and feel her safe and there. “She just _looks_ like a spider. It’s… it’s fine, Jon. We’re safe.”

Jon can’t help the god awful shiver that goes through his whole body regardless and he wraps his hands around Thee to hold her to his chest. Now that he knows, he’s only ever going to be able to think of her crawling around inside Martin’s shirt… trailing webbing… slowly wrapping him up… her many orange-banded legs tap, tap, tapping… Jon shakes his head to clear it and puts his glasses on the desk so he can rub at his eyes and forehead. He puts Thee down to settle on his lap where she can settle more comfortably as he cards his fingers through her feathers.

“We can’t let him know it bothers us so much,” Thee says after a moment of just existing together. “It-it’s _really_ rude and… and,” she ruffles her feathers, “and it’d only bring questions.”

“Right… right. You’re right,” Jon sighs and leans back in the chair, staring worriedly up at the ceiling. “It’s… it’s fine. Everything’s… fine.”

What kind of people get spiders anyways? Spiders manipulate, they’re self serving, they don’t mean well for anyone but themselves. Jon doesn’t like the thought of it. At least it’s Martin. Martin doesn’t scare Jon, just irritates him. Maybe… maybe that’s it? It must be. Just a pest. That’s all. It still makes his stomach churn when he thinks about it.

* * *

When a knock comes on Jon’s door early the next day Theophania lets out a little squawk of fear, feathers poofed out. Jon almost falls back in his chair as he throws himself backwards in a panic. There’s a moment of flailing arms before he stabelizes himself, hands gripping the desk too tight.

“Jon?” Sasha calls, concerned, through the door and he visibly relaxes, running a hand down Thee’s back to smooth down her feathers.

“Come in, Sasha,” Jon says, refusing to let his voice falter.

“Morning,” she says, as she comes in, her little steenbook daemon, Athelstan, trailing behind like always. She’s holding a mug in one hand and files in the other, a bundled up plastic bag tucked under her arm. She glances at his desk and tilts her head curiously as she shuts the door behind her. “No tea this morning?”

“Ah-” Jon looks down at his paper-strewn desk. He hadn’t even noticed. He’d been so nervous about seeing Martin at all he didn’t… When was the last time he’d made himself tea? “N-no. Not… Not today.”

Sasha gives him a quizzical look but shrugs and puts the files down so she can take the package out from under her arm. She puts the mystery object in front of Jon and picks the files back up, motioninging with them towards the bundle. “That’s for you. Martin pushed it on me when I came in this morning.”

Jon pauses his reach towards the package and levels a frown up at Sasha. “And why couldn’t he deliver it himself?”

She shrugs. “No idea. Said he was busy, but if you ask me he looked bothered about something.” Her expression turns into something more judgmental. “Wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

Jon falters and Thee takes a few uncomfortable steps towards him across the desk. He can feel Athelstan’s big-eyed gaze on him from across the room. “I-uh. I’m not sure--I… No of course not. He’s just being Martin. Probably saw some kids chasing pigeons on the way in and got upset or something…”

“Mhmmm,” Sasha hums, clearly not taking his word for it. “If you say so, Jon. I’m going to go see if I can dig anything else up on Victorian ghost number eighty-five. I’ll let you know if it actually goes anywhere.”

“Right… of course,” Jon mutters. He hates the way she does that. If anyone gives him more crap than Thee about how he treats Martin it’s Sasha. She just does it more subtly, like a disappointed parent.

Jon eyes the bundled up plastic bag skeptically. Who really knows what might be in there.

“Oh please, Jon,” Thee groans, but Jon knows the way she’s shaking ever so slightly. “Just... Open it.”

“Mmmm” Jon says eloquently, reaching for the bag to untangle whatever might be inside. Objectively it’s probably _not_ a spider web cocoon of viscera… Probably.

The mystery object clunks heavily onto the desk as he finally untangles it. An analog tape recorder.

“Hmm,” Jon hums, picking it up and turning it over in his hand. He absently wonders why Martin has one of these on hand, but doesn’t dwell on it much. Honestly he’d half thought Martin was joking. Hopefully it’ll work, but he won’t get his hopes up. “Well at least Martin came through on _something_... Thee find that corrupted statement Sasha just finished looking into. The… anglerfish thing.”

Thee shivers, but dutifully flaps over to one of the piles, plucking the top folder up and dropping it in front of Jon before circling to land on his shoulder. “You know this is one of the ones I hate...”

“Yes well it can’t be helped.” Jon fumbles around with the recorder a few times before pressing down the red record button. The recorder clicks on and fills the room with the soft, crackling sound of moving tape. “Test… Test… Test... 1, 2, 3… Right…” Jon coughs uncomfortably and glances at Thee who’s sitting fluffed up on the edge of the desk. Jon feels a little ridiculous talking into such an ancient device, but he shakes it off. He has a job to do.

“My name is Jonathan Sims…”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stop. Worm Time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmmm so that trailer tho?
> 
> I'm gonna *try* an update this au every wednesday but no promises (I was... overeager this week it's like 1 am rn). I recommend subscribing to the series rather than individual works if you want accurate updates since most of these are gonna be stand-alone pieces from the au.
> 
> Anywho. Thanks for the kind comments on the last chapter. I super appreciated all of them <3

Martin clutches the writhing bag close to his chest, fingers white with tension, as he pushes into the institute. Phoibe holds tight to his shoulder, just as irritated as he is and for once, less than interested in hiding. Rosie’s bumblebee daemon, Bernaldino, immediately buzzes forward to greet Phoibe, the two of them typically getting along rather well. This time, though, Phoibe rears up and hisses, hairs bristling. Neither of them are in any mood for this. Rosie accepts the fleeing Bern into her palm and holds him close, brows knitting together in worry.

“Martin! Are you feeling-” Rosie says, trailing off as Martin rushes by the front desk without so much as a hello. Frankly, he doesn’t give a damn if it’s rude. He knows he looks like hell and probably smells worse. He knows he hasn’t been to work in almost two weeks. He knows Phoibe was just very aggressive towards Bern for seemingly no reason. But as far as Martin's concerned, no one ever came looking for them so the rest of the institute staff can bloody well go to hell for all he cares. They left both Phoibe and him to get devoured by worms--completely alone. He knows full well how useless he is around here but...

So maybe it’s not Rosie’s fault specifically, but he’s mad and he very much thinks he has a right to be after all that.

Martin makes his way directly down to the Archives, getting more than a few odd looks from other staff members.

He does not knock before bursting into Jon’s office and gets just a  _ little  _ guilty satisfaction as Jon’s chair toples backwards.

“Jon!” Thee shouts, dislodged from his shoulder and flapping frantically to the desk. “Martin wha-”

“My god! Martin?!” Jon practically snarls, talking right over Thee as he picks himself up off the ground.

Martin doesn’t give him time to continue, tossing the bag of worms at him and letting them squelch against the desk. Let Jon deny  _ that _ . Let Jon go ahead and belittle him and… and tell him he’s wrong about  _ that _ . Phoibe presses one of her palps against his chin, reminding him to calm down. At her prompting Martin starts taking a few breaths to bring his heart rate back down. He loves her so much; he doesn’t know where he’d be without her.

“What… What the hell is-,” Jon pokes at the bag and immediately pulls back in disgust, “What are these things!?”

The tape recorder reaches the end of its tape and snaps off. Jon makes a quick scramble to properly turn it off so the tape doesn’t get damaged. And he didn’t even like the tape idea before... Martin’s fairly certain Jon never thanked him for that, no surprise there. Martin takes one more deep breath before grabbing the plastic chair resting next to the door and pulling it up to the desk. He takes a seat with a huff, arms crossed and frowning. His blind anger is dissipating now that he’s here, but he’s still rightly pissed off.

“They’re… worms, Jon. Evil, supernatural, worms that kept me in my apartment for almost  _ two. Weeks _ .” He’s breathing heavily, partially from remaining anger, partially from running all the way here.

“ _ What _ ?” Jon prods the bag again, prompting the sound of the writhing worms to start up again in full force.

“I want... to give a statement,” Martin decides.

Phoibe climbs up his neck and makes her way over to his ear to whisper, “You sure?”

Martin brings up a hand for her to go to and holds her up to his face. Having a smaller daemon makes private communication difficult at times. “Yes,” Martin whispers. “He needs to hear this.”

Phoibe hums and Martin deposits her back where she was. She stays close, curling up in the space where Martin’s neck meets his shoulder. Her hairs prickle in a comforting way; she’s familiar and she’s here. He’s fine. They’ll both be fine. Martin takes another deep breath. “So? Do you need a new tape before I start?”

“You-  _ what _ ? You want to make a statement? But you’ve-” Jon pauses as Theophania lands back on his shoulder and starts muttering in his ear.

Martin leans back against his chair and glares at the still-writhing bag. “We should kill those before they get out.”

Jon looks over at him half-way through his conversation with Thee, “What? Oh. Yes, right, you can-”

Martin reaches over to the desk and grabs the stapler before Jon can continue. He brings it down hard on the bag, privately enjoying the way they crunch and squelch. It makes him feel like he has  _ any  _ semblance of control over this situation. He doesn’t, of course, but it helps. The bag keeps their awful, oily juices contained and he keeps slamming the stapler down. He can only imagine how he must look right now, aggressively smashing a bag of worms with office supplies. Once he’s crushed them enough he’s absolutely sure they can’t possibly still be alive in there, he grabs it and drops it in the trash next to Jon’s desk before collapsing back in his chair. Maybe that was a little excessive, but he doesn’t care.

“R-right…” Jon says, glancing towards Thee. “I’ll put in another roll of tape.” He fumbles around in his desk drawer for a moment before pulling out a small box of fresh tapes. He passes that box to Thee while he takes the used tape out of the recorder. Jon puts the old tape with its corresponding paper statement as Thee uses her talons and beak to unbox a fresh tape with practiced efficiency. Jon pops in the new tape, offering a soft, “Thank you, Thee,” as he does so.

Jon pushes the recorder forward so it’s resting between them and shifts through the piles on his desk to find a blank sheet of paper and a pen. “Alright whenever you’re-”

Martin reaches forward and presses play.

“Martin, are you sure about this?” Jon asks and Martin notes the slip in his ever-so-carefully-cultivated professionalism. He’s been slipping since Martin barged in, actually. Apparently Jonathan Sims stumbles over himself a lot when he’s caught off guard, when he doesn’t have a moment to construct his carefully cultivated walls of academia. Martin smiles softly for the first time since he left his apartment.

“I just want to make a statement about what happened to me,” Martin sighs, plans of righteous anger and ranting gone. “I mean, it… it’s what we do.”

“No,” Jon says, quickly regaining his composure, “what we do is research statements. Usually those made by liars and the mentally unwell.” Martin rolls his eyes as Jon talks. He’s such a skeptic, it’s endearingly ridiculous at times. Martin wonders if Thee’s as skeptical as Jon is when she tugs indignantly at Jon’s ear.

“Well, I need to tell someone what happened,” and Martin doesn’t say this is likely the only way Jon will take him even slightly seriously, under the guise of work, “and you can vouch for my soundness of mind, can’t you?”

There’s a long pause where Jon looks Martin up and down, eyes flicking towards the trash can, towards Phoibe, towards Thee. Martin feels Phoibe bristle against his neck at the way Jon looks at them. She’s always been less forgiving of Jon’s more prickly tendencies. She thinks they both deserve to be treated better and has never been much of a fan of Jon, even more-so since she first showed herself to him. Martin got over it after a few days. He’s sure Jon had his… reasons for a reaction of that magnitude. Phoibe is not as quick to forget.

“That is besides the point,” Jon finally says and Phoibe sighs, too quiet for anyone but Martin to hear.

“If you’re worried about it, it doesn’t need to be an  _ official  _ statement,” Martin says. “I just need a record off it.” Ok that’s a little bit of a lie. He  _ also  _ wants Jon to take him even a little bit seriously, wants to explain his extended absence, wants to get some of the frustrations of being stuck just him and Phoibe with no one ever coming to help him, certain he was going to die. Thank God he wasn’t entirely alone. Having Phoibe there helped keep him from breaking down multiple times when he was so sure he was good as dead.

“Fine. You’re right. I suppose,” Jon says and Martin thinks that might be a first. “Statement of Martin Blackwood, archival assistant at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding…” Jon motions a hand towards Martin and Martin realizes that he never did actually explain what happened in any level of detail, just tossed a bag of deadly worms on a table like some sort of madman.

“A close encounter with something I believe to have once been Jane… Prentiss,” Martin fills in and shivers at the thought of her.

“Recorded direct from subject, 12th March, 2016,” Jon says. “Statement begins.”

And Martin tells him. He tells Jon about investigating the building and not getting in, about how Phoibe insisted they find a way in and get enough evidence to satisfy Jon. He tells Jon about how they first saw Jane, how he needed a picture;  _ needed  _ one for proof. And then he tells Jon how she cornered them in their flat. He tells Jon about how he came so, so close to opening the door, to dying horribly, when Phoibe stopped him, pointing out the worm wriggling its way under the door. He tries to keep too many personal feelings out of it, but he really isn’t sure he could have done that alone, without Phoibe there to help him calm down when he needed to, without her diligently keeping watch. For two full weeks he was terrified out of his mind, convinced no one was ever going to come save him.

Martin keeps the introspection about never having to be entirely alone to himself. He doesn’t want to think of life without Phoibe keeping him safe, keeping him centered. He knows Jon’s mentioned a statement or two where the person insisted they couldn’t find their daemon, that they were entirely, utterly alone. Researching that didn’t bother Martin much beyond the inherent wrongness of being without a daemon, but now the thought makes him shiver. It sounds awful, being without your other half… He can’t even imagine.

And then Jon offers to let Martin stay in the archives and he can feel his face going red. Phoibe groans, but Martin hurriedly shushes her.

“Okay… thanks,” Martin says, because regardless of how Phoibe feels about the little crush he’s nursing, he is  _ not  _ going back to his apartment any time soon. He was thinking about renting a hotel or something. “To be honest I didn’t expect you to… take it seriously.”

“You say you lost your phone two weeks ago?” Jon says, reaching into the desk to pull out his own phone.

“Thereabouts,” Martin shrugs. “When I went back into the basement.”

“Well in that time I have received several text messages from your phone, saying you were ill with stomach problems. The last one said you thought it ‘might be a parasite,’ though my calls to follow up were never answered. So, if this does involve Jane Prentiss, then I take it deadly seri-” Jon’s phone buzzes and cuts him off. “Hang on.”

“What?” Martin asks as Jon’s face contorts into a concerned scowl. Martin can feel his heart rate spiking. He’s fairly sure he knows who must have his phone, but he doesn’t like it and is praying it’s not what he thinks it is. It would, however, explain why no one ever came looking… Phoibe shuffles uncomfortably against his shirt collar.

“I just received another text message. From you. ‘Keep him,’” Jon reads. “‘We have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist’s crimson fate arrives.’”

Martin’s heart is in his throat. “What does that mean?” He asks, knowing well enough what the answer is.

“It means I ask Elias to hire some extra security,” Jon says, dodging the obvious. “I should probably warn Sasha and Tim as well. I’ll also have a look through the Archives, as I believe we should have a statement from Ms. Prentiss herself in here somewhere...”

Jon seems to only then realize the recording’s still running and reaches over to shut it off. “You can take the rest of the day to go out and buy what you need to stay here.”

“Oh, uh. Yeah that’d be great… thanks Jon.” Martin says, awkwardly fiddling with the edge of his shirt.

Jon waits a moment before looking up from where he’s reading and re-reading what notes he wrote down while Martin was talking. “Well don’t let me stop you. Either take the time or don’t, but we both have more important things to do than for you to sit around in my office all day.”

“O-oh! Of course… I… sorry.” Martin moves to gather his things before realizing he didn’t actually  _ bring _ anything aside from the bag of worms. Jon doesn’t look up as Martin leaves, but Thee does give him a little nod goodbye, which Martin appreciates.

“Well that was surprising,” Phoibe says as soon as the door closes. “Honestly I expected him to kick us out the second you said the basement was ‘spooky’.”

“Phoibe he’s not  _ that  _ bad,” Martin says.

“Apparently so.”

“All my stuff is back at the house…” Martin says, collapsing against the wall. All the adrenalin’s gone from his system and he just feels tired. He half expects to wake up covered in worms, like they got in and all of this is some awful fever dream as he dies. He just wants this to be over.

“We don’t have to go back if you don’t want to,” Phoibe says, edging closer to press against the underside of his chin.

“Thanks Phoibe. Maybe--Maybe in a few days…”

“We should at least go get the essentials before Jon finds us out here and yells at us.”

Martin takes a deep breath and pushes himself up. “Yeah, alright. We should probably apologize to Rosie and Bern, too.”

“Yes. I was…” Phoibe considers, “quite rude to him.”

“You were under a lot of stress. We both were. Are.”

Martin sighs. At least it’s over for now. They don’t have to go home, they can stay safe right here. No worms and absolutely no more canned peaches. And Jon was actually nice to him for once? Took him seriously? Martin’s heart flutters embarrassingly in his chest for a moment and Phoibe goans.

“You, Martin Blackwood, are far too forgiving.”

“Well maybe you’re not forgiving enough,” Martin says, not unkindly and starts making his way out.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my art tumblr for some art I've done for the au: dragonssparkle.tumblr.com


End file.
